Why Spend Time with God?

In America we live in a high-pressure world. There are a thousand voices trying to get our attention. We must take time to be alone with God our Father to hear Him speak. He’s always speaking to us.

 It is imperative that we turn our attention to the truths delivered to us by Jesus. They come to us through His teaching and by His life. We must be still and sensitive in His presence in order to be lead and instructed by His Holy Spirit. If you’ve been a follower of Jesus for any length of time this is nothing new. We are reminded of this often. The question we must ask ourselves is whether or not we actually do it. No one can boast of a special inner piety. However if anyone who honestly hungers and thirsts to know Jesus firsthand, it is possible within the privacy of our own soul. There are critics who insist that this kind of awareness is some sort of mysticism or even fanaticism. But there is really the knowledge of Christ's presence in daily affairs of life.

Most of us know full well that if we are to excel in any given area of life we must devote time, thought, and effort to it. Repetition is at the heart of learning. Practice makes perfect. If we are going to succeed in any profession, or art form, or athletics we must set aside other competing interests and devote our undivided attention to the one of supreme importance. The principle is precisely the same in the realm of the soul and spirit. 1 Corinthians 9:25 (NIV) Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

Christ calls us to follow Him, to be willing to come under His daily discipline and direction, to become subject to His divine orders. Following Christ is to heed His precise instructions. It is to carry out His clear will. It is to obey His call and to do His will in all goodwill. Contemporary Christians are not at all eager about this sort of spiritual discipline. Rather they have more often been led to believe that loving God is like some sort of social activity in which they sing happy songs, clap their hands, sway to the rhythm, and shout for joy. It is little wonder that when things go wrong and their personal problems multiply, they are so easily discouraged. Instead of being a strong, steadfast people with unshakable confidence in Christ, they cry the blues and look for someone else to blame for their troubles.

Our Father calls us to be a distinct and very different class of citizens. We are not to live as citizens of this world but as citizens of His kingdom. He expects us to live with calm confidence in Him. He longs to see us living an abundant life in His care as we quietly trust Him. We can only do this in intimate communion with Him. It is essential for us to spend much time alone in studying His Word. Let His gracious Spirit become our teacher, our mentor, our private tutor. He will lead you step-by-step into enduring truth. He will guide you into eternal practical principles by which you can live in peace and power, amid a world of chaos.

It is the quiet hours in company with Christ that are valuable times. It is then as we meditate over His statements and reflect on His commitments to us as His beloved, that His life, His interests, His outlook gradually become ours. Spending time with Christ and meditating on His will is vital. There is no other way in which we can acquire the mind of Christ. There is no other way in which our emotions can come calmly under His control. There is no other way in which our wayward will can become submissive to His great, good will. This is the paramount to walking with Him in harmony, holiness, and health of spirit and soul. It is the key to knowing Christ, trusting God our Father, and being led in joy and quietness by His Spirit. It cannot be overstate this simple truth that a man or woman whose life truly counts for Christ is a person who spends time alone with the living God in quiet communion and profound prayer. Giving Christ time and prayer is to honor Him, to give Him opportunity to impress His life on them. We cannot give hours of each day to the TV screen, the computer screen, or smart phones, and then give God only ten minutes and expect to be His person who pleases Him. That is bizarre!

Our Father's wants to warn His people that unless we give Him first place in our lives, the world around us will take that first place position in our thinking. It used to be somewhat of a secret that the mass media of the secular world was making a concerted effort to impose its own set of values on our society.  Now it is common knowledge. It has largely succeeded in the last half of the 20th century to the present and can be seen in the chaos, confusion, and crime of our culture. In large measure the problems of the church today are the result of God's people having never been taught by their leaders to take His word seriously. That when we become citizens of God’s kingdom we are to leave the old ways behind. To be a different and distinct people, we must have His mind-set and His outlook look on life, to see life as Jesus sees worldly life with its transient values, wherein all that truly endures is of eternal worth.

What is tragic in today’s church is it’s over tolerant complacency. Too few of its prominent people have been deep thinkers with deep convictions. The fashionable, popular approach to most of the terrible problems of our decadent church culture is to go with the flow. Simply amuse the masses, entertain the crowds, be a producer of popular ideas, adopt sifting cultural values into the body of Christ and contemporary music that will pack the churches with worldly-wise worshipers. As long as the pulpit is popular and the crowds consider it to be "cool" to go to church, our leaders have assured themselves God is pleased. But Christ calls us to a distinct sort of life.

It is one of personal love and loyalty to Him. It calls for sacrifice and service to others. It demands integrity within which includes not compromising God’s revealed word. The only possible way in which Christ can ever truly command our attention is to have a living encounter with us from day to day in the temple of our souls. He has never changed over the thousands of years that He has communed with man. Here are just a handful of His statements to us.

Psalms 46:10 (NIV) “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

Matthew 6:33 (NIV) But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

John 14:23 (NIV) Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

John 15:10 (NIV) If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.)

John 15:14 (NIV) You are my friends if you do what I command.

There is nothing vague or ambiguous about any of these plain, direct declarations from the living God. Our confusion comes from our own refusal to carry them out. We dredge up a dozen lame excuses for not complying with Christ's words. We say, “They are neither practical nor workable in our modern world” or “we do not have the time to really think them through.” or “the cost is too high; surely the God of all grace and goodness does not really call us to such severe and stern commitments.” The list goes on and on! Then we wonder why we are powerless people. We wonder why we do not impact our generation. We wonder why most of us are pagan people. We wonder why our church culture is all twisted.

Meanwhile Christ continues to call us apart, away from the chaos and clamor of our culture to spend time with Him in close communion. He asks us for our undivided attention. He invites us to be still, silent in calm solitude with Him so He can speak clearly to us. He expects us to respond to His requests in brave, bold, and forthright faith-not flinching or holding back. He bids us to count the high cost of being His friend. He tells us to think things through, to discover what endures and what is sheer vanity, human pride, and nonsense.

But most of us simply refuse. To be godly takes time alone with God. We are confident that casual church services are quite sufficient to be spiritual people. But no! It is not church attendance that Christ calls us to-He desires close communion with us in the secret place; He wants our love. We must get to know God firsthand, in person, privately! He is real. He is alive. He is active. He is at work in the world. He invites us to meet Him alone. He comes seeking our friendship, our love, our loyalty. Here are some questions.  Do you wish to meet Him? Have you seriously considered this matter? Did you ever truly think it through? Are you prepared to open your life to Him?

This is a serious, tough, life-changing act of your will. Intimacy with Christ is much more than a bright idea. It is much more than a sentimental, emotional decision made in a moving moment of soft music or impassioned preaching. It is a profound prayer of utter relinquishment to the Most High, in which you calmly, quietly, in genuine sincerity surrender yourself to Jesus, very God, who stands before you with open arms and a smile as your personal Savior, Deliverer, and Lord. He, and only He, God Himself, gives Himself to you as you in turn give yourself to Him. It is an exchange of life between Him and you. As you continuously partake of His life, you are in fact receiving the newness of His eternal life, which not only changes you, but also changes your entire personal relationship to Him. You discover God is your heavenly Father. You discover Christ is your dearest Friend. You discover His Holy Spirit is your constant Fellow Companion and Counsellor in a complicated world. You discover, at last, He is here.... All is well!